Publishing Copyrights And Plagiarism In Modern Day America
Readers may hear about the concept copy rights, with the sign @, before a publisher’s name or an author, followed by the year of publication. Readers also, hear about the concept plagiarism, which is related to copy right theme, where both are connected.
The term publishing usually means the issuing of printed materials, such as books, magazines, periodical journals and newspapers. And is therefore closely related to printing and printed materials. Although the practice of making extra copies of manuscripts goes back to the Middle Ages period, that caused publishing to spring into existence. The differentiation of printer, publisher, and bookseller house, were noticed in several cities in Europe, for example, in Holland, Vienna, Paris, Geneva, Florence, Zurich, London, and in the United States, Boston, Philadelphia, and especially New York are some of these industries related to publishing.
In the 19th century, specialization became increasingly evident , Music publishing became almost a separate business, as did map publishing. University presses began to be established in the U.S.A. specialization also grew within the houses in the 20th century. Editorial departments became distinct from production departments, and both were quite separate from the sales, promotion, and distribution departments. Publishers also specialized according to the subject matter of their books and the means by which they were distributed. Thus, trade books are fiction and non-fiction books to readers primarily through bookstores, whereas textbooks are directed toward college professors and school boards for use by students in their classrooms. Moreover, with the proliferation of book clubs, many books are issued with this market in mind.
During the 1930s and 40s the paperbound, pocket-sized book rose meteorically in popularity in almost all English-speaking countries; by the 1980s it was estimated, that one third of all books sold in the U.S. were paperbacks. Publishing has traditionally been an industry of small, family-owned firms. With the advent of new technologies for the transmission, storage, and distribution of data, once the prerogative of book publishing, had become a problem for the industry; television screens and data bases became symbols of the challenges to editors and publishers alike.
The increasing use of sophisticated copying machines posed new problems to the need of publishers and authors to protect their property by copyright and in 1976 the U.S. Congress passed a major revision to the federal copyright law that attempted to define to what extent published material could be produced without payment of royalties.
Plagiarism, does not mean only copying another’s work, or borrowing someone else’s original ideas. But terms like “copying” and “borrowing” can disguise the seriousness of the offense: Some of these ideas are: to steal and pass off ideas or words of another, as one’s own; or to use another’s production, without crediting the source or having permission, or to commit literary theft with no reference, and finally, to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterward which is covered under copyright laws and regulations.
According to U.S. law, the expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file).
For benefits of writers and readers, here are some areas considered plagiarism: turning in someone else’s work as your own; copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit, failing to put a quotation in quotation marks, giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation, changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit, copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on “fair use” rules)
But, most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, for example, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.
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